Our choir is singing a stanza of “A Mighty Fortress” on Sunday.  We will be accompanied by brass and tympani.  But there is one place where the basses and tenors have to jump down several notes.  We don’t have the sopranos and altos to cover for us.  So far we, or at least I, just take a stab at it and hope to get back on track two or three notes later.

Choir practice is much like a sports team getting ready for a game. The director/coach gives the choir/team the plays/music with each part of the team/choir having different assignments/parts.  To get it right we run through the play/music repeatedly until each section gets it right and then, hopefully, it will all come together and work smoothly when we put it into action.

The same could be said for Christian living.  Life is a constant practice to get it right.  Every day we have opportunity to work on how we put into practice loving God and our neighbor as our self.  Of course, there are parts which we will never get quite right.  We will hit a wrong note in something we said, we go the wrong way when we meet a situation, we get confused about what we are supposed to do, things don’t go according to the plan set before us.

The redeeming grace in our Christian life is not that we must get it all right, but that Christ has not only shown us the music/playbook, but also accompanies us and gives us the Holy Spirit to continually teach and guide us.  Though we will never do the play book perfectly, Christ is continually there forgiving our mistakes, errors in judgment and refusal to do as we ought.  Thus each morning we have an opportunity to start over with a clean slate, knowing that at the end of the day, he will wipe the slate clean again.